'Sexy' science grads make spoof video to combat sexism

A group of British female scientists have made a spoof video of themselves
strutting around in high heels and losing their make-up in science labs - to
the song 'I'm Sexy and I Know It' - in response to the "demeaning"
science 'girl thing' video published by the European Commission earlier this
year.

A group of female scientists at the University of Bristol have made a spoof video of themselves strutting around to the song 'I'm Sexy and I Know It' in response to a "really demeaning" video earlier this year, which tried (but seemingly failed) to attract more women to the male-dominated profession.

The stars of the latest video - many of whom are currently working on PhDs in the psychology unit of the university - felt compelled to launch a comeback spoof version to get the message out there that girls are interested in other things besides make-up and boys.

Suzi Gage, a 29 year-old PhD student with a Masters in cognitive neuropsychology, told Telegraph Wonder Women: "We made the video mainly for fun, but also because the original was so awful. It was really demeaning to women, and contained no science at all - just make-up."

The European Commission film describes science as a "girl thing" and combines generic pictures of beakers and words like "hydrogen" with pictures of skinny models wearing designer sunglasses.

But its pink background, lipstick-style logo and techno music soundtrack appeared to have missed the mark with viewers who branded it as "offensive" and "insulting".

Ms Gage said: "There are big problems regarding women in science, from physics A-level students right through to the percentage of professors. There are various reasons, and people like Athene Donald [a Cambridge university professor] are helping to bring this to public awareness, but videos like the original really don't help."

Ms Gage is the girl in the sequin and lace black dress in the video, called Science: It's a Thing.4.Girls.

The video features deliberately "dumb" girls accidentally putting make-up into centrigfugal evaporators, spilling chemical liquids all over the floor because they are too stupid to pour through a funnel, dancing back and forth in high heels in lab coats, and reducing each other's brains to pea sizes using the cat scan (an impossible thing in real life, but then these girls are silly, little things).